♪♪ good day, i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. prosecutors are on a fervent, if somewhat frustrating quest, to dig into ivanka trump's history at the trump organization. that trial just broke for a lunch break, but so far the former first daughter was unable to recall many details, not giving the attorney general's team much help as they probe her family's alleged fraud. we'll have a live report in just a minute. plus, election night 2023, want to favor democrats, but as the election sielk l comes to an end, how the dems learn the lessons from last night and turn it into a winning formula for next year. and can president biden ride the borks issue back to the white house. their friendship goes back nearly 40 years but could tie between president biden and bibi netanyahu be crumbling under the weight of war. new reporting on what could be a new deal to ease tensions and get help into gaza. but we start with ivanka trump on the witness stand today forced to testify in her family's $250 million civil fraud trial, essentially reliving a life she tried to leave behind. while her testimony has lacked the fireworks her father provided, it also hasn't been as fulsome as prosecutors might have liked. ivanka trump saying at least 30 times she does not recall details about emails, meetings, conversations or documents from her time with the company. in fact, she left the trump organization nearly seven years ago, and tried to avoid testifying altogether, but this morning attorney general letitia james says she's still, quote, inextricably tied to the trump organization. >> she will attempt today to distance herself from the company, but unfortunately the facts will reveal that, in fact, that she was very much involved. we uncovered the scheme and she benefitted from it personally. >> i want to bring in sue craig as "new york times" investigative reporter. she was inside the courtroom. msnbc legal analyst, lisa rubin also just left the courtroom. paul butler is a former federal prosecutor, georgetown law professor, and msnbc legal analyst. peter baker is "new york times" chief white house correspondent, and look who's here in studio, michael steele, former rnc chairman, both peter and michael are msnbc political analysts. good to see you all, lisa, this is the first time you've been able to come out of court since the last break. what's happening inside there? >> reporter: we are seeing an ivanka trump who, as you know, chris, doesn't remember much, but i want to go against what some folks are saying as a conclusion about that. this has actually been remarkably effective testimony for the attorney general, not because of what ivanka trump says but because in sitting there, they are able to show her a number of documents that she is on and use them then as evidence in the case and build a narrative, and the narrative goes something like this. the trump organization was not able to obtain financing for a number of its deals on terms they found acceptable to them. why? because trump was a credit risk in commercial real estate lenders and private equity firms and all sorts of other people who might have loaned him money ran away. and jared kushner introduced ivanka trump to a banker in the private wealth management group at deutsche bank. the narrative that the attorney general wants the judge to see is that again and again and again, ivanka trump was involved in deals where they couldn't obtain financing from other sources on favorable terms, so they went to deutsche bank whose private management group was willing to lend to them on two conditions. the conditions were this, we'll give you a lower interest rate and one that you like, but you've got to give us a personal guarantee that you can cover the principal and the interest on the loan as well as the operating income of this asset you're about to operate, and on top of that, you've got to meet a minimum net worth requirement of at least 2 to $3 billion. and ivanka trump had an email with a gentleman named jason green blat who was a lawyer at the trump organization she was showed. in it she basically says this is as good as it gets, and greenblatt responds what about the net worth requirement, that's going to be an issue for us. and ivanka says, absolutely, but we knew that. i think this has been a tremendously effective couple of hours for the attorney general's office, although you wouldn't know it by sitting in the courtroom and listening to her say again and again, politely as always, i don't recall. >> part of this too is we're used to her dad, and donald trump was to say the least over the top on the stand. what do you make of her demeanor, and do you agree that actually she really helped the prosecution's case? >> i think she's helped them not so much necessarily on what she's saying on the stand, but the documents that are going up, the emails and back and forth of her knowledge of the financials and what was required to get this loan, it's been all morning. we've been rolling through two main projects are really the hotel in washington she was involved in in doral and over and over we can see just how involved she was, but her demeanor, it's how she's been the opposite of her father. she's been answering very politely. she often does say i don't recall, she smiles after she says i don't recall often. and there was one, even one moment where the judge stopped and just thanked the audio-visual people in the courtroom for just the great job they're doing in keeping this trial running smoothly by getting the documents up and ivanka turned to him and agreed and said, yes, it's very impressive indeed. she's doing everything she can to be polite and courteous. this is the polar opposite of what we saw from her father earlier this week. >> chris, can i add just one point there? >> sure. >> reporter: after she says she doesn't recall particular events like meetings that she set up or attended or particular documents, she's also careful to say -- and you know, in some cases have been forced to say -- but i don't quibble with what the document says. i don't quibble that this was my email, that this was my signature, that i attended such a meeting. so yes, she doesn't remember, but nor is she presenting a narrative that's contrary to the one that the attorney general can establish through documents. and that also makes her a remarkably different witness than her father and even to some extent than her brothers. >> yeah, i mean, paul -- >> chris, just one other note -- >> no, go ahead, sue. >> no, no, just one other note i think is really important. there has been so much sparring about whether or not she should even be in urt co. she appealed it. she's not a defendant in this. she was called as a witness, and during her testimony at one time, she had to leave the courtroom because there was just arguments about whether or not some of these documents should even be let in because they're from 2011 and '12, they're outside the statute of limitations limit, and the judge came down on that and said, you know, while it may be some of the initial emails and documents are, they had to continue to resubmit the documents. so he's letting it in, but this is going to be an argument that's going to be heard going through the appellate courts, and there's a lot of objections going on around her testimony because some of it was, you know, the things that are being asked to address were so long ago. >> paul, that was a question i had for you, how much of this do you think is about this actual case? because we already know that the judge has ruled that fraud occurred here -- and how much of it, at least on the side of the trump family, is about setting themselves up potentially and in this case maybe ivanka helps them set themselves up for an appeal? >> yeah, so the judge has already ruled that the trump organization is liable for fraud, so the issue now is how much money they have to pay in damages in this case, ivanka wasn't so much cast as a high level executive, but letitia james was looking at her as the ultimate inside woman, someone who had knowledge about particular deals and someone who profited off particular deals. we're hearing a lot of i don't remember, but i agree with lisa, what we're also hearing is corroboration that donald trump was misleading at best and fraudulent at worst about his net worth and that the company rely on his net worth in order to get favorable terms for its deals. and so she's kind of low key snitching on her dad. >> low key snitching. >> i like that. >> let me ask you about what you make of ivanka trump. look, when she testified before the january 6th committee, she said she agreed with bill barr. she said her dad did not win the 2020 election. we don't see a huge break here, but neither is she saying, oh, i don't remember this at all. as we just heard, she's saying, oh, yeah, this is my email. oh, yeah, i do recognize this document. >> yeah, the idea that ivanka's going to split with her dad to me has always been sort of an amusing folly by those who are out there thinking that, you know, she's going to break because of some of the things that she did in the past, like you just exampled. but the reality of it is this is very different from that. that was politics, and that's a space that she never really wanted to play in anyway, and she wanted to get out of it as quickly as possible. you know, our network and others reported, you know, her desire to get back to new york because this culturally was where she wanted to be, the politics was washington. this now, this trial is about the business. this is about the family business. this is about what they do. this is about her legacy, what's going to be left to her when dad is no longer there. so the idea that she's going to now come in and, she may say, yeah, i acknowledge that's my signature. i acknowledge that that email came from my office, but i'm not going to give you the specifics you need and want to verify that connection back to daddy, back to the business as a whole, so she's doing sort of that sort of blocking attack lane so the safeguarding the family position as much as she can while at the same time seeming to cooperate. >> so peter, ivanka hired her own lawyer separate from the legal team representing the rest of her family, and a person with knowledge of the situation told your newspaper that it rankled some folks in the former president's camp. what more can you tell us about that? >> yeah, of course it did, obviously. it does send a signal that she does have her own interests to think about and those are not necessarily those of her family. she was originally a defendant in this case, appealed it, got out of the case thanks to the appeals court ruling and she is not in the same position as the rest of the family. now, look, you know, this is a culmination of a really interesting three-year evolution for ivanka trump. in the days after the 2020 election, she and jared kushner basically washed their hands of the trump white house. they decided just days after the election they were going to move to miami. they began looking for real estate, looking for a school. they did not really buy into this whole challenge the election thing. they basically humored her father and jared kushner, in fact, told republican operatives in washington. let him go through it, it will be fine. in the end he'll come to his senses in effect was what he said, and ever since then you've seen them try to distance themselves, not publicly. they're not going to make a big show of it. she didn't show up for his campaign announcement when he announced he's running for a second term. she's not really been part of the business for a while. they're living a separate life in miami and i think she and her husband are trying to sort of establish their own world that's not at least dependent on his. >> so paul, as we've pointed out, she was taken out of this case, right? in spite of the fact we heard letitia james say again, going into court today, she was very involved in all of this in the family business. we saw in the paperwork that was presented today that she was involved in these deals, but are there really no legal ramifications for her even in the way trump valued his properties including her own apartment. is this really more about her personal life and the brand that is trump that has been very good to her, frankly? >> absolutely. so she's no longer a defendant in this case based on the statute of limitations. so she's not going to have any money coming out of her own checking account or savings account, but to the extent that this litigation has the potential to crush the trump organization in new york and letitia james is trying to prevent the defendants, donald trump senior and his adult sons from ever doing business in the city again, in the state again, and that clearly would have a devastating impact on ivanka's financial situation. >> peter, for the former president and his two sons, the ramifications obviously are huge. they still rely on the trump o for their livelihood and their reputation. you know, i think obviously to a lesser extent, ivanka trump, but she did not come back to new york where she held court for many years, if not decades, where she was on the cover of magazines where she went to all the big galas. what are you going to be watching for from her, i guess not just for the rest of the day today when they come back from the lunch break, but in general, moving forward, her father still has another year to go on this campaign. >> he does, and it will be interesting to see more what role, if any, she does play. she's made clear she's not going to continue to play the role she played in the white house as a senior adviser. does she show up for major events, what does she do during these criminal trials. does she sit by her father's side or show up in court from time to time? it's a very interesting and complicated dynamic. it's hard to look inside anybody's family, but this family in particular has a particular shakespearean quality to it in which we read small signs for larger meaning, and the larger meaning we've seen here from her in these last three years and i think today is a desire not to be brought back into the, you know, to the whole scene. she felt very burned, i think, by her time in the white house, and i think she, you know, was done with it and wants to move on. >> before we go, lisa and sue, if you both can weigh in quickly on what you're looking for this afternoon. i'll start with you, lisa. >> reporter: i think i'm looking for a little bit more of the same, just how much ivanka was aware of in terms of negotiating these loan documents and to what extent she really draws some distance between what she knew. she's been very careful so far to say, she no involvement with the statements of financial condition or any valuations of properties. that doesn't mean that she didn't understand in negotiating certain loans or other deals how very important trump's personal certification of his financial statements were to financial institutions. that's something donald trump insisted right left, and every other way, the other day that didn't matter to the banks at all. right? he told us that the banks didn't care. they only cared about the quality of the deal and the amount of cash in his pocket. ivanka through these documents is giving us a very different lens to understand those deals of what actually deutsche bank cared about. >> and i think the other thing, the question is, a, will she wrap up tomorrow or will that spill into tomorrow. i think this is important for people following this, this is the last witness for the prosecution, and we're likely going to see the defense case start on monday. the court's dark on friday, and that could take several weeks and run into december. >> lisa rubin, sue craig, paul butler, thanks to all of you. peter baker, it's been a bit, i should say congratulations to your college aged son who got a book deal. bravo to the baker glasser family, and michael, you're going to stick around. a key takeaway from the election results across the country, abortion rights remain a critical motivator for voters. what exactly might that mean for 2024? we're back in 60 seconds. we're back in 60 seconds democrats have a very strong set of data points that abortion rights remain a powerful motivator for voters. most importantly it's motivating voters in blue and red states. in republican ohio, it wasn't even close. voters resoundingly enshrining abortion rights into the constitution. in the purple state of virginia, a repudiation of governor glenn youngkin's push for a 15-week abortion ban. democrats control both houses of the state legislature there. one of the reason state republicans had such a bad night, the defeat of an incumbent state senator, a practicing ob/gyn who supported the governor's call for that 15-week limit. here's how the democrat who defeated her characterized the results. >> our victory and victories across the state are aa sign that folks want progress to continue. they want us to focus on things that matter. and they certainly don't want us taking away women's rights. >> priscilla thompson is on the ground in ohio, joining me here, michael steele, former rnc chairman and an msnbc political analyst. it's pretty clear, michael, that the abortion issue cuts across party lines, not just democrats, independents, moderate republicans. how did democrats capitalize on that, and what do republicans do about it? >> well, what the republicans do about it part is a lot harder than how the democrats capitalize on it because what republicans have done across the country and certainly at the state level where the original argument was let the states decide. a lot of states have decided. they've said, okay, guess what. >> be careful what you wish for. >> be careful what you wish for. >> you want to leave the state to have an abortion, can't do that. we're going to prosecute you. you have this whole narrative that they have to go back and try to unpack, which they can't. that is very hard, and when you have conservatives out there tweeting, you know, republicans have got to do something about the abortion issue, what do you want them to do? on the democratic side, the reality is that's part of your conversation. you know now that there's an issue that animates americans personally. they -- because it affects them deeply. it affects their children specifically, and that's where you find a lot of republican women, which is something the party completely discounted. having a greater say in this, in these red states, starting in kansas a year ago. now we see it play out in ohio and in kentucky where that issue now coupled with other things really -- is a really powerful formula for democrats, but their communication about that has been woeful, and so what's happened has been left to a lot of candidates on the ground, gubernatorial, senatorial, state rep candidates to make the case. they now have to nationalize that narrative for biden to let him go out there and tie the bow on it, if you will. >> do you think it potentially provides a road map for democrats beyond abortion? a lot of people who believe in abortion rights will say to you -- certainly i've had this experience out of the campaign trail -- i personally don't believe in abortion, but i don't want to tell others what to do. >> that's the irony, when you look at this idea, well, let the states decide. because at that time, over that 50-year period, the thinking behind that is the states are going to be able to manage this and do it and they're going to, you know, take into account both sides, all sides. well, that's not happening. what's happening is one side is dictating the terms. so that conversation now has become harder. so when people say, as you rig